Dell EMC Unity XT reviews

We use Dell EMC Unity XT as a storage solution for a virtual machine datastore.

Dell EMC Unity XThas helped our organization with the high availability. It has been working very well and the performance has been good with an old flash solution that we are using. It has improved the reliability and speed of virtual machines.

The high availability of Dell EMC Unity XT has been the most important feature.

The interface and configuration could improve.

I have been using Dell EMC Unity XT for approximately six years.

The solution is stable.

The solution does not fully scale because it's a scale-up solution, not a scale-out, but if you get the right target, you will be able to scale up to meet your needs. We are not planning to expand the storage of the solution at this time.

We have approximately 200 users using this solution.

The first level support from Dell I was not happy with because as a technician I needed to get the second or third level support. However, the level one support was able to pass me over to the right technician and I received the solution pretty fast. The support overall was very good.

We previously were using the Dell EMC VNX storage and before it, we used CX storage. It's is basically the same solution evolving during the time.

The implementation is straightforward, the configuration tool two hours, and to deploy it took approximately three days. We did some configuration changes and considerations which took a lot of time to test.

The interface and how the configuration needs to be completed could be simplified.

I did the implementation of this solution. The solution works well and does not need any maintenance or assistance unless it is broken.

My advice to others is for them to make a good plan and to use that resource they have.

I rate Dell EMC Unity XT an eight out of ten.

It is used for deduplication and encryption.

• Easy to scale
• Easy to maintain

Easy to use management.

I like that it is wizard-driven. In past iterations, it has made it easier to cross-train the team.

It is very stable.

The scalability definitely meets our businesses requirements. It is highly scalable.

The technical support is good. However, the support portal needs fixing. Accessing a service request on the support portal seems to be a bit difficult, as opposed to just calling the 800 number. I do think it has improved over time.

The initial setup is straightforward.

Go with the virtual appliance versus the hardware.

We integrate the solution with VMware. There have been some cost involved with this.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: the relationship.

We use the Unity as the SAN for our data center. It's where all of our data lives right now, for our main office. It has exceeded our expectations.

We have simplified it down to where we're using one storage pool inside the Unity, whereas on the VNX, we had multiple storage pools. This has simplified that aspect for us. It would depend on each organization. We're heavy into VMware and this ties into it so simply. It's made it a lot easier for us.

We're very familiar with the VNX series, we were using VNX before Unity. The features sets are very similar but what I like is the way it ties into VMware. When I create a datastore inside Unity, it just shows up in VMware. I love that tie-in.

Stability is excellent. We have never had downtime with Unity.

Scalability is great. We haven't scaled up very much, but it's definitely easy to do.

We have only had to use technical support for firmware upgrades. They are helpful.

We were using VNX. Our Dell rep stays in touch with us fairly often. He keeps us knowledgeable about things that are up and coming and what might be a good fit for us. The business makes the decision. 

When looking at a vendor what's important are 

• price
• support
• the product.

Price is definitely going to be a factor. More than that, you want something that's solid. You're going to pay a little bit more for something that performs better and is more efficient at what it does, makes your life easier.

The initial setup was fairly straightforward.

We're probably going to go away from the Unity and end up using VxRail and vSan. Hyperconvergence is all the rage, that is where everything is going, so that's where we're headed. We need the hyperconverged, we need the elasticity - that we can spin things up and spin them down quickly and easily. We can't do that right now.

I would definitely steer a colleague towards Unity if they were looking at that versus NetApp, for example.

It is primarily for block storage for VMware in our Americas data centers, and it is also used for block storage and file storage in our European data centers.

It's a much smaller footprint than our older storage arrays, which take up some six tiles, a lot of space in the data center. The Unity's are a lot smaller, and they're a lot faster.

We use the all-flash arrays so the performance is probably the most valuable feature. As features go, deduplication and compression are important too.

I would like to see them add Storage Groups, like we have had in Clariions and VNXs. Storage Groups would be a great addition.

We've had no issues with it whatsoever, as far as stability goes.

We have not had to add capacity to them. I would imagine it's going to scale well, we just haven't had to add capacity.

The support is very good.

It was just a refresh.

When selecting a vendor, the criteria for us would be 

• track record
• stability
• support.

I work for a rather large law firm and they're not typically that price sensitive but, obviously, we need to be good stewards of the firm's money as well.

The setup was pretty quick, pretty easy.

At this point, I would give the Unity an eight out of 10. I think it's a little bit early on in the development of features. But overall, it has performed well.

There are some alternatives, but what we've found, working with our partners, for mid-range storage it's probably the best one you could choose. There are other offerings from other vendors, but it's a good choice.

We are a titanium partner. We deliver the full solution portfolio that Dell and Dell EMC have.

It can be simple to deploy, the standup time is quite quick. The interface is quite quick. The terms are simple, intuitive, it's similar what was there in the VNXE before it. It's very simple to navigate and administer from the console. 

The hardware itself, it differs from Compellent and differs from the VNX before it. It doesn't have a separate file harbor that goes with it, there are no separate NAS heads. It's 2U, you have file and block storage, so you get a quite a lot of services for a small footprint.

It's not as reliable as it should be, I think it was probably released a little early. We've had production problems with customers, and there are still some challenges at scale as well.

Compression is a problem for the system. Once you enable dedupe and compression, the performance of the system, the capability, halves. Customers don't necessarily realize that, and they can't get as much out of the system as they initially thought. It has to be right-sized and sized for compression, but even with that, because there are only two storage processors, you're ending up at almost 40 percent usage.

Tech support has taken a downturn since the acquisition, and that's not just for the Unity. The skill, the people, the engineers, some of them have been let go. Their talent has been let go, so the overall support is another challenge we're dealing with on an ongoing basis.

It's quite easy to deploy, there is no problem there. The system itself is good as well, the offering is good. You can have file and block without any extra harbor for file.

I would like to see the new system come out very quickly - that merges Compellent and Unity - and let's get rid of these problems and focus the engineering group on one system. To me, that's the quickest route to success. They need to get off the pot for one of them and take the good. Don't necessarily discard the code. There are some good features in both, so they really need to get back to an engineering focus, like EMC of old.

I would give the Unity a five out of 10. The offering is good. The simple console is good. The deployment is good. Support is not good. The compression performance capability is not good. Problems with I/O modules, with bugs that came out that really should have been caught before the product was released. And I have a problem with the confusion in the market between the two systems, between Compellent and Unity. The quicker a mid-range solution comes out combining the two products, the better.

It’s helped with the overall stability of our VMware environment.

We use it to provide VMware VMFS to our VMware environment. Also, we use it for replication of data stores to another EMC Unity 300. This works fantastically.

• It’s easy to manage. 
• The interface is great. 
• Underlying functionality works well. 

The only improvement would be a lower cost per unit/disks, however on the whole we are very pleased with this product. 

None whatsoever. A big update was released in which Dell contacted us and did the upgrade.

None whatsoever. We expanded both our EMC Unity disks by 10TB without any disruption or issues. Simply added the disks, then created further data stores.

We moved away from NetApp FAS storage and really like EMC Unity.

All of the IT devices help production time. They make time "faster." But this device, in general, it is a money maker. It makes us a lot of money. That is what I like most about it. It is critical to the business.

The Snapshot feature.

Recently, they released products, sometimes without proper testing, it seems. I guess the way the market is going, the way technology is going, they are saying, "Hey, let's get it out there."

It was pretty buggy when we first got it, but they have improved it with some updates. They worked with us and addressed our concerns.

It will definitely meet our needs going forward. With all-flash it should be able to scale. You probably just need one 4U device and you have terabytes of space.

Technical support has dropped off over the years. It is what it is. It is probably a seven or eight out of 10. It is difficult to find the right person. 

It was straightforward. I cabled it up myself and racked it myself. Someone came out to help with the front-end side, the software side. That was it.

I rate it an eight out of 10, only because it started out buggy. Other than that, it has worked well for our company.

Lately, the biggest use I've seen is around VDI and data migrations - migrating from the old VNX platform onto a new Unity.

So far so good. Everybody has been very happy with it. It has been a very seamless transition. The performance, from a VDI perspective, has been very good. They are very happy with it.

• Ease of use
• Ease of management
• Ease of deployment
• The GUI is very user-friendly.

I don't see a lot of room for improvement. Perhaps if they added more 10GB ports to the back of the system, so you have more IOPS out of the box itself to the network, that would help. But other than that it's a great platform.

The stability is awesome. It is very stable. No issues.

No issues with scalability. It is very good.

Our customers have only had to use technical support for replacing drives and things like that. When they do, they are able to get through to the right people and get the help they need.

The initial setup is very straightforward. Very easy.

Definitely do it.